Devices for sensing radiation in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum are used in a number of applications, including photography, night vision systems, and others as will be apparent to those skilled in the art. One problem that arises in connection with such devices is the cost of fabricating optical elements, such as, but not limited to, lenses, for such devices. Glasses that are typically used in connection with optical devices for use in the visual portion of the spectrum are typically not useful in devices for use in the infrared portion of the spectrum, since they tend to largely reflect the infrared radiation incident thereon.
Instead of glasses that are used for optical elements for optical devices that are used in the visual portion of the spectrum, typically crystals of materials such as silicon or germanium are used, which are ground and polished to provide the contours that are required for the desired optical characteristics such as focal length. Fabricating the crystalline material for use in such optical elements, and grinding and polishing the crystalline material into the optical elements, is relatively expensive, and the cost of optical elements for devices for sensing radiation in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is a substantial portion of the total cost of such devices.